


Keeping the Hounds at Bay

by anony_mouse



Series: file://garbage_overwatch/ [6]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Gabriel fucks up very badly, Gen, How Do I Tag, Human Experimentation, Minor Character Death, Pre-Crisis, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, SEP Program, Sorry Not Sorry, Suicide Attempt, Super Soldiers, Whump, does it count as hurt comfort if I never wrote the comfort?, h/c, unfinished drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-01 14:22:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14522526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anony_mouse/pseuds/anony_mouse
Summary: Some battles last longer than others. Some mistakes are worse than others. Some things are important to remember.(Note tags please.)





	Keeping the Hounds at Bay

**Author's Note:**

> See notes at the end for spoilers and possible triggers.

Gabriel didn’t know how he’d forgotten.

Well. That was a lie. He never forgot, he just stopped thinking of it in terms of the here and now. 

_He’d stopped caring_. The angry hiss of his conscious stung him as he struck the bag again in perfect rhythm with an inaudible beat.

There were secrets shared in SEP with your bunkmates. The kinds of secrets that you never spoke of in the light of day, when you’re not holding your guts in with willpower and spite. When your skin isn’t burning up like cheap tissue paper. When you’re muscles aren’t struggling to rip you apart from within. Secrets you take to your grave. Secrets of all stripes- the kinds of things you’d never have reason to believe and the kinds of things that were all too easy to accept.

Killian had had an older sister who’d died when he was five, but he could still talk to her when he stood outside in the gray hours of twilight under a clear sky; she hated the SEP program, but she was proud that her little brother had finally grown taller than their mother. Umi’s stepfather had raped them for three years until their dad had found out and shot the man with their grandmother’s pistol. Shiera had never met her before, but she knew that the girl with gray eyes that she saw in her dreams on the third of every month was her soulmate. She would do anything to protect those gorgeous gray eyes. Gabriel had gone to his abuela’s grave every month since she died before joining the army to speak with her- to this day, she was the only person he had never ever lied to. Sometimes he tells little fibs to people just to keep that true.

Jack had tried to kill himself six times since he hit high school, but for one reason or another, he never managed to finish the job. The SEP gave him purpose and drive. So long as he’d had a mission and a purpose, he was doing better. There was no need to fear, but they all kept an eye on him anyways for as long as they could.

Killian had died after the ninth round of injections, his body rejecting the chemicals so violently that he’d seized up and hadn’t stopped until his heart gave out. Umi had been shot by an OR unit on their fourteenth mission helping an idiot civilian reporter get clear. Sheira had tried to retire immediately after the crisis, but had been snatched up into the bowels of the UN’s secret black ops before she could. No one had heard from her since or even knew if she was alive. Gabriel had been demoted to Blackwatch.

Jack had been promoted to Strike Commander of Overwatch and made the UN’s golden boy.

Gabriel had been angry. Bitter and jealous and a dozen other things he hardly wanted to admit. Part of him was proud too- if he’d had to pick anyone it would have been Jack- but the part that burned was the that the UN could spurn his ‘rougher’ methods in the same breath that they encouraged him to continue using them. As if Jack hadn’t carried out those missions right alongside Gabe during the crisis. The worst of it was that he wasn’t even angry at Jack. Not really. He was angry at the UN and the suits up top and a bunch of other people, but Jack Morrison wasn’t ever really the true subject of his rage. 

He’d just been a convenient lightning rod.

...

_People notice Jack slipping, but he’ll never endanger his people. Instead, he sets things up at OW very carefully so that they can function without him, quietly makes preparations for his funeral and the execution of his will, has everything set up so that his death will go as smoothly as possible. He could never account for Gabe showing up three days early from an op gone bad to look for him. For Gabe to hunt him down to his off-base apartment and find him in the tub with carefully slit wrists and an empty bottle of pills._

_No one notices Jack slowly losing his sense of purpose. Slowly losing his drive. Remembering what it was like to slip into loneliness and despair. To lose the perpetual battle with his apathy and depression. To find that for the first time in a long time, his list of reasons to stop trying was longer than his list of reasons to keep going._

**Author's Note:**

> CW: (spoilers) Jack mentions trying to kill himself multiple times as a kid and then at the end tries to kill himself with both knives and pills. 
> 
> I pictured this as a h/c Jack and Gabriel getting help and making up before Switzerland fic, but I'm not finishing it, so sorry. More hurt, less comfort. Plese don't hate me.
> 
> As always, feel free to contact me if you want to pick this up in the comments or [here](https://anony-mouse-writer.tumblr.com)


End file.
